Electrical lighting has become commonplace in modern society. Electrical lighting devices are commonly deployed, for example, in homes, buildings of commercial and other enterprise establishments, as well as in various outdoor settings. Even in a relatively small state or country, there may be millions of lighting devices in use.
Traditional lighting devices have tended to be relatively dumb, in that they can be turned ON and OFF, and in some cases may be dimmed, usually in response to user activation of a relatively simple input device. Lighting devices have also been controlled in response to ambient light detectors that turn on a light only when ambient light is at or below a threshold (e.g. as the sun goes down) and in response to occupancy sensors (e.g. to turn on light when a room is occupied and to turn the light off when the room is no longer occupied for some period). Often traditional lighting devices are controlled individually or as relatively small groups at separate locations.
With the advent of modern electronics has come advancement, including advances in the types of light sources as well as advancements in networking and control capabilities of the lighting devices. For example, lighting devices include wireless communication systems that facilitate networking and may include sensors that detect environmental condition data relative to the location of the lighting device.
Despite advances in lighting technology, users with reduced visual capability need assistance beyond the mere more effective and efficient provision of light. A visually impaired person is a person whose visual capability is reduced to the point that medication nor glasses are able to restore the person's vision to a degree that the person can autonomously traverse an area without assistance, such as a walking cane, a personal assistant, service animal or the like. As used herein, a visually-impaired person is a person that requires visual assistance beyond glasses or that is completely blind. While visual augmentation systems have been proposed that utilize audio stimuli, such as the vOICe system, or tactile stimuli, such as the BrainPort® V100, which uses different signaling techniques applied through a mouthpiece, these systems are not widely supported by current infrastructure, either within buildings or outdoors.
There are a variety of situations in which it is desirable to obtain and utilize data to assist persons with impairments to vision and/or other senses.